Logo
Circle Set Up & User Guide FAQ Contact Home
  1. Circle Support Center
  2. Circle Feature Guides
  3. Set Limits with Filters, Time Limits, and Pause the Internet

Setting a Site as Allowed/Not Allowed with Circle

Noticing that a certain site or app won't load on one of your profile's? Want to make sure your profile can load that site or will filter it out? To do so you may need to edit your profile's Filter Level, Filter Settings, or create a Custom Filter for the website.

Circle Feature Guide: Filter Settings

Identifying Filter Setting issues

Have a site you think Circle is blocking and want it to load? Make sure at the time the loading issue occurred the profile wasn't in a Bedtime, Focus Time, and hadn't reached a Time Limit. Each of those settings will stop a site from loading at the time. Your Filter Settings can also stop a site from loading if those set the site as "Not Allowed". 

You can check to see if your Filter Settings are causing a site to not load by looking under the profile's History >> Filtered section. If you see the site there, then the profile blocked it from loading based off its Filter Settings. If the site appears under the Visited tab that means it loaded. Edit the profile's Filter Levels, Filter Settings or add a Custom Filter to allow or not allow that site to load (see below for each).

Check the Profile's Filter Level

Each profile you set up with Circle has a Filter Level. This is the highest level filter setting you can change and determines the default settings for what is allowed and not allowed on the profile's assigned devices.

The most restrictive Filter Level on Circle Parental Controls, the Kid Level, sets a number of Apps and Categories as "Not Allowed" by default and won't let you set those to allowed unless you change the Filter Level. To make sure a site loads on your profile, make sure Circle's Filter Level Defaults won't block it and change the level if necessary. If you want to make sure a certain app or category of sites are blocked check the above link to make sure the filter level sets that to Not Allowed.

Check the Filter Settings for the Profile

You can customize each profile's settings to allow or not allow certain apps or categories of sites. Keep in mind that each Filter Level has different default settings already. Learn more about Circle's ability to filter Apps and Categories of websites here.

Add a Custom Filters for the site

Circle includes a lot of customized settings for your apps and filtering. But not all the apps out there are included! Creating a Custom Filter should help you allow/not allow those apps and sites.

You can set any custom site to allowed or not allowed using Circle. To do so, determine what sites you need to add to the Custom Filter:

  1. Use the site/app on a device assigned to the profile.
  2. Wait a minute or two and open your Circle app >> the Profile >> History >> and then the Filtered and Visited tabs
  3. Look for the sites you'd like to create a Custom Filter for.
  4. Once you see those in the History section, tap on the website listed and choose "Set as Allowed", "Set as Not Allowed", or "Set as Unmanaged" depending on what you'd like to do.

You can also manually add websites to the Custom Filter list: here's a helpful article that will walk you through this process step by step. As wel, check out our example for doing so using the Discord app here.

Need more help? 

  • Allowed Site Is Not Loading Properly
  • Circle is Stopping Part of a Website from Loading

 

Was this article helpful?

Need more help? Select your product below.

Circle on Netgear Circle Parental Controls
Contact Support

Support Hours:
Live Chat
Monday-Friday: 7 a.m. - 7 p.m. (PT)   |   Saturday-Sunday: 8 a.m. - 4 p.m. (PT)
Phone Support
Monday-Friday: 10 a.m. - 7 p.m. (PT)   |   Saturday-Sunday: 8 a.m. - 4 p.m. (PT)

Support is only available in English at this time.

© 2022 Circle Media Labs, Inc., an Aura company. All rights reserved.